


Out of the Dark

by alma_gloriosa



Category: Chicago Fire, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Angst, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29622012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alma_gloriosa/pseuds/alma_gloriosa
Summary: A year after Harry is left on his relatives' doorstep, Vernon is offered a position opening a new international branch of Grunnings in Chicago.A year and a half after that, Matt Casey pulls a young boy out of a locked closet during an apartment fire. Suspecting abuse, Casey can't help but get personally involved in the case, but can he end up being the family Harry needs?
Relationships: Matthew Casey/Kelly Severide
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea why I decided to write this, but it's poured out of me more quickly than anything else I've ever attempted. I will just say that I love stories where Harry is raised by characters from other fandoms, and I also really like the Casey/Severide tag and there aren't enough of them.
> 
> A few other notes:
> 
> 1\. A quick warning for Harry Potter fans: this story is almost entirely Chicago Fire-based. Harry will obviously feature prominently, but nothing else from HP will be included at this point. If you are not familiar with the show and its characters, you may not enjoy this fic. In the future, I may write more Harry-centric sequels, but that won't be happening here.
> 
> 2\. Chicago Fire backstory can be assumed up through the end of Season 1, except that Kelly Severide is and always has been bisexual. WIthin the CFD, only Shay and Casey (and Andy, before he died) know. The Casey/Severide ship will be a very slow burn.
> 
> 3\. After Season 1, I have played around with some the events of the show to suit the story. Some things are switched around or eliminated altogether. The general storyline in terms of what happens in the firehouse will remain the same.
> 
> 4\. I know nothing about firefighting, so any time I feature a scene involving a fire or other rescue, assume that I'm doing my best to make it realistic but that there will be mistakes.

The call comes through just before midnight. There’s absolutely nothing remarkable about it – an apartment fire in one of the nicer neighborhoods in their coverage area. They find out later that the fire had started slowly due to an overloaded circuit with faulty wiring in the second floor unit; the couple who lived there is out when they arrive, and comes home after the building has been cleared of people but is still up in flames. In fact, the damages end up being so bad that the building is condemned. The fact that Matt Casey remembers this particular call, the fact that he continues to think about it for months after, is because he can’t figure out how he makes it out alive with the small boy from the fourth floor in his arms.

It starts out, like so many building fires, with Boden declaring that time is limited and ordering various companies to do sweeps of different floors. Truck 81 is directed to the third and fourth floors; Casey sends Hermann, Mouch, and Otis to the third floor, and takes Cruz and Mills up to the fourth with him. Inside, the smoke is thick, visibility almost zero, but it only takes a few minutes to locate three family members: a couple around Casey’s age and their son. The husband is very large, and Cruz volunteers to take him down, while Mills picks up the mother – both are fully unconscious. The child is semi-conscious and coughing heavily as Casey carries him out. He feels uneasy leaving – they haven’t done a full sweep of the place, and there may not be time to come all the way back up. So he’s relieved when they find a firefighter from another house coming up the stairs as they start down. Casey hands off the kid and heads back in.

He does a very quick, sweep of the bedrooms already checked, then checks what he finds out is a third bedroom. He’s as thorough as he can be while still being quick, and he’s fairly sure no one is there. He’s just made it back out to the main living area when he hears Boden’s voice over the radio.

“I’m calling it,” the Chief’s voice crackles. “Everyone evacuate now!”

Casey is about to radio back when he hears it: a whimper, or a sob. He’s not sure what he heard, but he is sure that it’s something alive.

“Chief, I think I may have another victim here,” he responds.

“Where are you, Casey?” Boden asks.

“Fourth floor.”

There’s a pause. “You have one minute, no more.”

“Copy,” Casey replies.

The problem is that he’s not even sure where to look. He runs towards the back wall, away from the exit, wondering if there’s another kid from the third bedroom who’d wandered into the kitchen, but he can’t see anything and then he hears the sound again. It’s louder but more distant, so he runs back into the living room and that’s when he spots it: a closet. But … what would someone be doing in the closet? Did they think it would protect them from the smoke?

He runs over and turns the handle, but it doesn’t open, and that’s when he realizes – it’s locked … from the outside. He turns the lock quickly, sure that he’s already gone past the allotted minute, and pulls open the door so fast he almost takes it off its hinges. Lying there on the floor is what appears to be another young boy, this one significantly smaller than the first they’d located. Casey hears Boden’s voice asking where he is, asking for a report, but he ignores it, reaching out to grab the child. But he scrambles backwards.

“Hey,” Casey calls out. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you, but we have to get out of here, now!”

He hears the child cough heavily and forces his way further into the closet – it’s a tight fit with all his turnout gear on – and scoops the boy up from the floor.

“It’s ok, I’m going to get you out of here,” Casey promises. The kid is fully conscious, and trembling in his arms.

He backs out of the closet as quickly as he can, knowing he’s going to have to make a run for it, and that’s when he sees it: the fire has breached their floor, and is rushing towards him. Casey’s been in enough fires to know what this is – it’s the same way Andy died, and now it’s going to happen to him and this poor kid. Even though he knows it, knows that no human is fast enough to outrun that fire, he can’t just resign himself to this fate, and he runs, no visibility, not even sure that he’ll make it through the doorway instead of running into the wall, not that he’ll make it that far anyway. He’s holding onto the kid with every ounce of strength he has, waiting for the heat, the pain, the fear.

It doesn’t come. He’s running, and he knows the fire should have caught up to them by now, but then suddenly there’s the door, and the hallway. The fire fans out toward towards him, it’s so strong he can feel it through his jacket, but then he leaps to the side, and the wall is between them and the fire. He doesn’t know how he managed it. He shouldn’t be alive.

But he is, and so is the kid. He knows their safety will be short-lived with the way the fire is burning, and Boden is yelling into the radio for Casey to report.

“We’re in the fourth floor hall,” Casey yells into his radio. “Got a kid, Chief.”

"Don’t go down, Casey, I repeat, do not go down! Get to the roof,” Boden orders.

And so Casey goes up, having long since defeated the instincts that tell him to go always down instead during a fire. Squad is already waiting for him with the aerial when he gets there. Severide tries to take the kid, but he clings to Casey, and Casey assures him that he’ll be fine getting him down.

Back on solid ground, he carries the kid over to where Shay and Dawson are waiting. This part is trickier, because now he really does need to let go, but his grip on Casey is surprisingly strong.

“Hey,” he says, quietly, close to the boy’s ear. “You’re going to be ok now. But you need to let these nice ladies take care of you.”

He hears Shay snort in the background, “Nice ladies.”

The kid shakes his head and, if anything, clings tighter.

Casey tries a different approach. “What’s your name?” he asks. When the boy doesn’t answer, he adds, “My name’s Matt.”

“Harry,” the boy finally says, and Casey’s surprised to find that he has what sounds like a British accent.

“Well, Harry,” Casey continues. “I got you away from the fire, right?”

He can feel Harry nod into his shoulder.

“That’s right. And do you believe that I want to do whatever I can help you?”

Harry nods again. “Yes.”

“I know this is scary,” Casey says, even quieter now, “but to help you best, I need to put you down on this bed, right here.” He turns so that Harry can see it, and he pats it with a hand, trying to show him that it’s safe. “Do you think you can do that?”

“I’m scared,” Harry mumbled into his shoulder.

“I know. I know you are, buddy. But you’ve been so brave so far. You think you can be brave a little longer?”

Another pause, and then another nod.

“Ok, Harry, loosen up a little,” Casey coaxes, turning and lowering Harry to the gurney. “Let go now, that’s it, Harry, easy now.”

Gradually, Harry loosens his grip enough that Casey is able to put him fully on the gurney, but as he’s straightening up, Harry manages to grab onto the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t go!” he nearly howls.

“Hey, hey, Harry,” Casey says. “It’s ok. This is Leslie and Gabby. They’re going to make you feel better, I promise. But I have to go help with the fire.”

“Please, don’t go,” Harry begs. “Stay here.”

Shay is leaning over, starting to examine him, but Dawson is hovering around Casey.

“You might as well stay, Casey,” she says. “We need to check you over as well.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “I’m fine.”

“Oh really?” Dawson asks. Her hand reaches up behind him and then she’s poking into something that hurts more than Casey would like to admit.

“What?” he asks, managing not to yelp.

“Burned through your turnout jacket,” she says. “Come on, you can ride with us. You need to come anyway, and it’ll keep the kid calm.”

“I need to check in with the Chief,” he protests.

“Good thing he’s headed this way,” she says.

“Everything alright?” Boden asks, approaching.

“Casey did a great job with this little guy,” Shay says. “Some smoke inhalation, and second degree burns on his left leg. Otherwise he seems fine.”

“But Casey here is refusing to let me look at his burns,” Dawson adds.

Casey glares at her.

“Casey,” Boden says. “Go to Med. Get checked out. And stop giving our paramedics a hard time.”

“I …” Casey starts. Boden gives him a hard look. “Sorry, sir. Going to Med.”

Boden, satisfied that the matter is settled, turns and goes back to oversee the rest of the clean-up, and Casey allows himself to be dragged along with the gurney. “Looks like you’ve got me for a little longer, Harry.”

**********

At the hospital, however, it’s a different story, because the doctors need to treat Harry and make sure nothing was missed at the scene, and they’re also eager to give Casey a thorough examination. Harry’s holding Casey’s hand by now, and Casey can’t bear to pull his hand away, so one of the doctors does it, and Casey can only watch as they wheel the boy away, screaming for Matt to come back. Once he’s out of sight, he finally allows himself to be led to a treatment room, where they get his jacket off and treat what turns out to be a couple second degree burns on the back and side of his neck and on his shoulder where his jacket was burned through.

After, he’s waiting around for a nurse to find him an extra scrub top to replace the polo they destroyed, and he has time to stop and think. There are two main thoughts on his mind: first, that he still doesn’t know how he managed to get out of the apartment before the fire overtook him. Second, that finding a kid locked in a closet in the middle of a fire is … well, disturbing doesn’t seem to be a strong enough word for it. The first is concerning, and it’s definitely going to be a challenge writing up the incident report, since he’ll sound like a lunatic if he tells the truth, but it’s not something he’s going to figure out sitting here in the ER.

The second issue, though … that’s more concerning, and he’s starting to wonder if he should be doing something about it. The more he considers it, the more he realizes that there are just no good scenarios where a small child should be locked in a closet, ever, let alone in the middle of the night. He tries not to read too much into the rest of it – how Harry didn’t want to let Casey pick him up, how he clung to Casey instead of asking for his parents – because he wouldn’t be the first kid to become attached to a firefighter who pulled them out of a burning building. That locked closet though …

He’s feeling very conflicted about it all when he spots Dawson wandering by, and he calls in her. She glances, for a moment, at his bare chest, and can’t seem to form words for a minute, and he isn’t sure whether or not he should find it cute or annoying (it’s a little bit of both). But then she blinks and looks him in the eye.

“All good, Lieutenant?” she asks.

“Yeah, good to go,” he says, motioning to the bandages on his neck and shoulder. “Waiting on a scrub top, but if you’re going to be around a little longer, I wouldn’t say no to a ride back to the station.”

“Yeah, of course” Dawson says. “Shay’s doing a quick restock.”

“I actually wanted your advice on something else,” he says.

“What’s up?”

“It’s about the kid, Harry,” Casey says. “About how I found him.”

“What do you mean?” Dawson asks.

“Well, we found the parents and one kid in bedrooms. We got them out but I stayed behind to sweep the rest of the apartment, and there was a third bedroom – with a bed that hadn’t been touched. I was just about to leave when I heard something, and that’s when I found Harry … in a locked closet.”

“Ok, that’s weird,” Dawson says. “But maybe he thought he would be safe in there?”

“Yeah, I thought about that, too, except that it wasn’t locked from the inside. It was locked from the outside. He was locked in there,” Casey explains.

“What?” Dawson’s eyebrows furrow. “Why would …?”

“No good reason that I can think of,” Casey replies. “And don’t you think it’s weird that he never once asked for either of his parents, during the rescue or the ride in the ambo?”

Dawson shakes her head a little. “Not his parents. I popped in to check on him, and the docs found out that he lives with his aunt and uncle.”

“It’s suspicious, right?” Casey asks.

“Yeah, it is,” she says, and looks at him more closely. “What are you saying, Casey?”

“I’m wondering if I should be reporting this,” he says.

“You don’t need my advice about how to write your reports,” she replies.

“Not my report. To DCFS.”

Dawson blinks. “Do you think …?”

“I think it’s enough,” he says. “I mean, maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s nothing, but we’re supposed to always report, if there’s any suspicion, right?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, I … I guess you should do it.”

Casey nods, feeling relieved that Dawson agrees. Because evidence or no, Casey can just feel in his bones that something isn’t right about this whole thing, and he’s already broken the cardinal rule for first responders: don’t get attached.

**********

He gets a scrub top not long after, and puts his turnout coat back over it because the ER is actually pretty cold, then finds a nurse and asks about Harry. She points out his room, and even though Casey wants to go in, he doesn’t. The boy appears to be resting peacefully, an oxygen mask secured over his face, and seeing Casey might get him worked up and clingy again. He waits until the doctor treating Harry’s burns spots him and pauses to come out.

“I just wanted to give you a head’s up, so you can pay attention to anything he might say,” Casey explains. “I’m reporting his case to DCFS.”

“If you’re asking about his medical condition,” she says, “I can’t divulge that information.”

Casey shakes his head. “I’m not asking you to,” he says. “But I imagine they’ll ask you about what’s been happening since he came in.”

She nods in agreement and goes back into the treatment room. Casey makes the phone call. It takes longer than he expected, and it’s frustrating when he realizes that the evidence he has doesn’t sound like much, not when the questions he’s asked detail the specifics of physical and sexual abuse that he hopes to God Harry’s never experienced.

To his surprise, Dawson and Shay have been waiting around for him – there haven’t been any additional calls. Dawson sits in the back with him on the way back to 51, since they can’t all fit in the cab. When they get back and climb out, squad is sitting at their table instead of in bunks, as Casey would’ve expected.

“What took you guys so long?” Severide asks. He looks at Casey. “You ok?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Physically, anyway.”

Severide raises an eyebrow questioningly, but Casey just shakes his head in response. He’s glad that they’re back on better terms, after months of underhanded comments and quiet resentment over Andy’s death, but things still aren’t what they were, and this isn’t the sort of thing he feels like he can talk about with Severide, not now.

“I just need to get some sleep. I’m beat,” he says, and goes to bed.

**********

It’s almost six months later when they get a call to another apartment building about ten blocks from the call where Casey rescued a small boy named Harry out of a burning building. It’s not on Casey’s mind at the time of the call, although he has thought about that fire, off and on, over the months: about how it made it out alive. He still hasn’t figured it out. He tries to just be grateful for it, grateful that he was somehow so wrong and that he decided to run anyway, and leave it at that. He doesn’t always succeed, but at least he knew enough not to bring it up with anyone, which would probably have led to questions.

This fire seems to be contained to one floor right now, and squad is short-staffed since Capp was injured badly enough during an earlier call that he was sent home for the rest of shift, so Severide pulls Casey in on the fire floor rescue. The fire is really rolling, and it’s not an easy rescue, so it isn’t until they’re in the hallway, pulling out an obese man along with his badly burned wife and son that Casey realizes who he’s looking at.

“I know this family,” he yells to Severide. “They had the other kid, their nephew Harry.”

“The one who …?” Severide asks.

“Yes,” Casey yells back. He didn’t personally tell Severide about it, but Dawson told Shay and Shay had told Severide, who’d checked in with Casey about it later.

Severide glances back into the apartment. “Do you think he’s in there?”

“I don’t know,” Casey says. “I didn’t try to find out what happened.”

Even though he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to very badly, but he was already under the microscope, since Hallie had recently died, and he didn’t need anyone calling his ability to work into question.

“Go back,” Severide yells, and Casey tries to ignore the fact that it feels like an order because he probably would have gone either way.

Working on instinct, he hugs the walls, looking for a closet, and sure enough, he finds one – locked, from the outside. He’s so nervous that he fumbles with the lock and then, inside, once again, is Harry. He’s curled up in a ball on the floor, coughing and crying. Casey pushes away the rage he feels that Harry is still with this family.

“Hey,” Casey says, crouching down. “Hey, Harry, do you remember me? My name is Matt.”

The sobbing stops, though the coughing doesn’t – not the kid’s fault, of course. “Matt?”

“Yeah, Harry. Come on, we have to get out of here.”

Harry doesn’t protest when Casey picks him up. Instead, he clings on like his life depends on it – and it probably does. The fire has spread in the twenty seconds it took to get Harry out of the closet, and Casey can’t take the same path back to the doorway, but he manages to get there, dodging fires, and stops for a very brief breather in the hall.

He checks on Harry, who clearly has a worse case of smoke inhalation than the last time Casey pulled him out of a fire. He’s also still crying, which he didn’t do at all during the previous fire.

“Hey,” Casey says softly. “It’s ok, Harry. You’re going to be ok. Let’s get outside, yeah?”

“I … I’m sorry,” Harry says between sobs and coughs. It’s almost unintelligible, but Casey can understand him. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

Casey isn’t sure what Harry’s referring to, and the disorientation is worrying, so he gets himself back into motion and rushes out of the building, able to go down this time since the fire appears to have started in Harry’s unit.

Outside, Harry once again clings to him when Casey tries to put him on a gurney, and Dawson is shocked when she realizes who he is. Together, they manage to get him down – Casey knows he needs care more urgently this time than he did before – but he allows Harry to cling to one of his hands again. Shay gets him on oxygen and start monitoring his breathing carefully, while Dawson looks for burns. She pauses when she gets to his left arm and he cries out in pain, and looks up at Casey with concern.

“What?” he asks.

“There’s no burn here,” she says. “I think his arm is broken.”

“That didn’t happen in the fire.”

“No, it didn’t,” she confirms.

This time, Casey’s the one convincing Boden to let him ride to the hospital with ambo, and he swears he isn’t going to let Harry go home with those people again, not for anything in the world.

It ends up not being an issue. Harry’s aunt, uncle, and cousin all die from their injuries in the fire.


	2. Chapter 2

Casey leans against the wall, out of the way of the orderly who’s pushing a child on a gurney. He really should leave; he shouldn’t have come back the first time, or the second, and now he’s on his third visit to Harry. If he hadn’t been on shift yesterday, he would have come then as well, and this would be his fourth visit. He knows it’s not healthy. The DCFS social worker had been surprised and, Casey thinks, somewhat dismayed to find him there. But a minute passes, and then five more, and he’s still in the hallway. He can’t help thinking about how Harry’s been alone in the hospital except for these visits from Casey and DCFS, and every time he closes his eyes, he remembers Harry clinging to his arm down in the ER, begging him to stay.

The DCFS worker – Barbara is her name, he’s pretty sure – is taking a long time, and he’s getting restless. He starts wandering up and down the hall, wondering what they’re talking about. He finds a water fountain around the corner and takes a long drink, and when he rounds the corner back into Harry’s hallway, Barbara is just exiting the room.

She smiles at him in a sad way. “Have you been visiting a lot, Lieutenant?” she asks.

Casey shrugs, trying to play it cool. “He doesn’t seem to have anyone else,” Casey replies. “No luck finding any family?”

“I really shouldn’t be talking to you about this,” she says.

“Please,” Casey requests. He tries not to sound as desperate as he feels.

Barbara glances around, as though someone is going to overhear and tell her boss, but then she relents. “No. Definitely no one else in the U.S., and we’ve been having some difficulties with the authorities in the UK.”

“So what happens? He goes to a foster home?”

“If we can find one,” Barbara says. “He’s going to need extra care when he’s first discharged, but right now we only have places in group homes.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Casey says. “He’s a sweet kid.”

“He is,” she replies. “But don’t you worry, I’ll do the best I can for him.”

“I know,” Casey agrees. He also knows that the Chicago DCFS is overworked and under-resourced.

“I should go,” she says. “And Lieutenant Casey? I know you’re only trying to help, but you shouldn’t get too attached either.”

He nods, and waits for her to go because damned if he isn’t going back in to see Harry again, maybe distract him with a game of Go Fish.

He can’t say what it is about this boy that’s gotten under his skin. They’ve saved kids before, even orphaned kids. Maybe he’s changed, since taking care of the boys for Heather. He thinks about how she’d have felt if she’d been gone and her sons didn’t have any other family to take them in. He thinks about Harry’s deceased mother, perhaps looking down on all of this and wishing someone would just help her son, would love him even a fraction of the amount she must have. He thinks about all of this and he doesn’t even realize what he’s about to do until he’s already doing it. Barbara is already halfway down the hall toward the elevators when he calls out her name. She turns to look back at him.

“Let me take him,” he says.

Barbara stares at him, then starts back toward him. “Lieutenant?” she says, as if she must have misheard.

“Let me foster him,” Casey repeats, feeling more sure this time.

Barbara is speechless for a moment, then says, “That’s a very kind offer. But fostering a child is a lot of work. It’s not a decision to be made at the spur of the moment.”

“This isn’t a spur of the moment decision,” Casey says, even though it kind of is. “I’m the one who pulled him out of a locked closet in the middle of a fire, twice. I’m the one who tried to get you guys to intervene months ago. I … he’s a sweet kid, and he doesn’t remember a single adult who’s cared about him. Don’t send him to some group home. Let me take care of him.”

“I don’t doubt your sincerity,” Barbara assures him. “But taking in a child, especially an abused child, is more work than you might think. And there’s paperwork that you’d need to do; it’s not a quick process.”

“I know what I’m getting into,” Casey says. “I have a house, in a good neighborhood. And not too long ago I spent four months taking care of a friend’s sons. You can check in with Diane Brown in the District 3 office – she was the boys’ caseworker during the time their mother was in prison.”

Barbara still doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Casey feels his chances of convincing her are better if he stays silent now and lets his words speak for themselves.

“I’m not making any promises,” she finally relents. “But here’s what we’re going to do. Harry will be in the hospital for a few more days, so you’re going to go home and think about it. Make sure it’s really what you want. If you’re truly committed to this, come to my office on Friday at 1 PM.”

She reaches into her tote bag and rummages around until she finds a card. “You can call before then if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Casey says. He’s grinning like a fool. “I’ll see you Friday at one.”

“ _Think_ about it, Lieutenant,” she says again, as Casey turns.

This time, he doesn’t hesitate. He enters Harry’s room with a smile on his face.

**********

He’s working on some reports in his office, getting everything cleared off before the couple shifts he’s taking off to help Harry settle in, when there’s a knock on the door. He looks up and sees Dawson on the other side. They haven’t spoken much since, well, _that_ night – in fact, he doesn’t think they’ve spoken at all unless they were on a call, or preparing for one. He gestures her in and sets his paperwork aside. She enters with a brief “Hi!” and then sits awkwardly on his bunk.

“So, you’re taking in another kid,” she says. Her eyes are wide, and with the awkwardness between them he can’t tell if it means she’s excited for him, or something else.

“Yeah,” Casey says. “Looks like it.”

“You must really miss the boys,” she says. “They would still be with you, if Heather hadn’t gotten out early.”

“Yeah,” Casey says. “I mean, obviously I miss them. But they were always supposed to be with their mom.”

“Right. But it’s only been a couple months,” Dawson says. She looks at him, chewing on her lower lip. “I know you miss them, but it doesn’t mean you should just go out and find another kid to foster.”

Casey is speechless for a moment, then angry. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Do you really think that I just went out and signed up to foster a child as a replacement for them?”

“Well, you have to admit that’s how it looks.”

“To you, maybe,” Casey says. “To me, it looks like an abused child I’ve been worried about since before Heather even went to prison.”  
“Matt,” Dawson says in a placating tone. “I’m not trying to be difficult, I just … this is what I do. I tell my friends when I have strong feelings about something, and right now I’m worried.”

“You’re worried?” he asks.

“I helped you out a lot with the boys. And I didn’t mind doing it, of course I didn’t. And I’m willing to help out with Harry when I can. But we’re not together … I mean, you made that perfectly clear. So it can’t be like last time.”

“You think I can’t do this without your help?” he asks. “Are you serious right now?”

“I’m not saying that,” she says. “I’m just telling you to think about it.”

“Except you want me to agree with what you think,” Casey says.

“Matt …”

“It’s Lieutenant Casey,” he says, more coldly than he probably should, considering that he was the one who had rejected her. But she’s totally out of line right now. “We’re on duty right now, so I’m not going to say what I want to say. But I suggest that unless you have something to talk about related to the firehouse, you leave my office. Now.”

**********

Casey’s so distracted by the interaction with Dawson that it takes him twice the time it should to finish his paperwork, but no calls come through, so it doesn’t really matter. The next knock at his door is Severide, and this time he reaches over and opens the door for him, stretching over the back of his chair.

Severide looks better than he had last shift, which is promising. Casey’s been concerned about him, ever since the whole Katie thing, but he also hasn’t been sure the best way to go about trying to support him. It isn’t like he’s been open with Severide about anything recently – not about Hallie’s death, not about how hard it was trying to help the Darden boys deal with grief over their father’s death, not even how affected he’d been pulling Harry out of the first fire.

“Dinner’s up,” Severide tells him, leaning past the doorframe.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Casey tells him.

Severide doesn’t move from the doorway, though. “I heard about you and the kid. Harry.”

Casey feels a bit defensive over his comment, cautious after dealing with Dawson’s reaction. “Yep.”

But Severide just breaks into a wide grin. “Case, that’s awesome!”

“It is?”

“Of course,” Severide says. “That kid needs someone like you looking out for him.”

“Well, I don’t know how long it’ll be for,” Casey says. “They could find family somewhere and he could be gone in a few weeks.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Severide says. “It’s great. Really, man.”

Casey finally smiles back at him. “Thanks, Severide,” he says. He gestures to his computer then. “I just need to submit this last report, and then I’ll be out.”

“Good,” Severide says, standing up straight again and turning away. “Mills cooked pot roast tonight, and it smells amazing.”

Casey watches him go, then skims over the last report quickly, checking for typos, before submitting it to the system. He’s smiling the whole time.

**********

Harry’s asleep when Casey arrives at the hospital. It’s weird, because Harry’s never been asleep when he’s arrived, and today’s the day he’s scheduled to come home. A nurse comes in and explains that apparently he was so excited about the prospect of leaving the hospital and getting to stay with Casey that he didn’t sleep all night, which makes him feel much better about it.

He sits down by Harry’s bed and just stares at him awhile. He was worried, irrationally, that he’d show up today and realize it had all been a huge mistake, but now, looking at Harry’s sleeping face, he knows it wasn’t. It’s such a perfect little face, even that odd scar on his forehead. Casey can’t imagine what could have caused it, and given what the kid has been through already in his short life, he has no desire to consider the possibilities. Harry’s going to be with him now; nothing else bad is going to happen, not if he has anything to say about it.

He reaches up and runs a hand through Harry’s hair, knowing he’ll have to be woken soon for a final examination before the doctor will discharge him. Harry’s eyes flutter at first and then open fully, and it takes a few seconds before he realizes that he’s looking at Casey.

“Hi, Matt,” he says with a sweet, sleepy slur to his words.

“Hey, buddy,” Casey says softly. “I hear you didn’t sleep too much last night.”

“I was waiting for you to come.”

Casey almost laughs. “But you knew I couldn’t come get you until morning,” he reminds Harry.

Harry doesn’t smile at this. He casts his eyes downward.

“Hey,” Casey says. “What’s wrong, Harry?”

Harry shakes his head.

“You can tell me. You can always tell me anything,” Casey urges.

Harry doesn’t say anything right away. He shifts around, never looking up at Casey, until finally he speaks, so softly Casey almost can’t hear it. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t come.”

“Oh,” Casey says. He moves a hand to Harry’s check. “Harry, look at me.”

Harry does, reluctantly.

“I completely understand why that would have been scary. But I promise you, I _promise_ , I will do everything in my power to come whenever you need me. You got it?”

Harry nods his head, but Casey knows he only partially believes him. It’s to be expected, a kid in Harry’s shoes. But that’s ok. As long as Harry’s with him, he’ll prove it as often as he needs to.

Casey nods in return, then he reaches down and tickles Harry in the stomach, which breaks the tension and leads to happy giggles from the kid. A nurse comes in during the middle of their horseplay, and has to hide a smile herself.

“You’re not damaging my patient here, are you, Lieutenant?” she asks.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Casey replies, reaching out for one last tickle, which elicits one last giggle, before sitting back so she can check Harry’s heartbeat and blood pressure.

He leaves the room a few minutes later at the doctor’s request, and then goes back in and is given instructions by a nurse about dealing with Harry’s cast and other wounds, and handing him paperwork with the details of Harry’s follow-up appointments. He doesn’t bother to tell her that he’s already got them scheduled in on his calendar.

In short order, Harry’s changed into the clothes and warm winter jacket that Casey brought him, which is a bit big but not big enough to be a problem. Actually, he looks kind of adorable in it. Casey adds a hat for him when they get to the door, and then they walk, hand-in-hand, to Casey’s truck.

The ride home is quiet, mostly because, despite Casey’s efforts at peppering Harry with questions, the boy seems nervous and just keeps looking out the window. Casey doesn’t push. He knows Harry likes him and wants to stay with him because the nurse told him as much, but he also realizes that all of the change Harry is experiencing right now must be daunting. Not only has he made it out of two bad fires in less than six months, but his entire family is dead – which can’t be easy for such a young child to deal with, even if they were terrible to him – and now he’s going home with Casey who, even if Harry does like him, is still mostly a stranger.

He’s relieved when they get to the house, because it means they can do something, he can try and distract Harry from whatever thoughts are upsetting him. He holds Harry’s hand once again going up the steps to the front porch, but then lets go to unlock the front door and ushers Harry in ahead of him. Harry looks around curiously, almost ravenously, as Casey shows him the living room and the kitchen and where the downstairs bathroom is.

“All the bedrooms are upstairs,” Casey tells Harry once he’s been shown around the whole first floor. “Want to go see your room?”

Harry doesn’t say a word, but he nods his assent. Despite the fact that he was just released from the hospital, Harry runs up the stairs with surprising speed, and Casey hurries after him.

“My room’s at the end of the hall, I’ll show you in a minute,” Casey says, gesturing in that direction.

He turns to the doorway closest to them – he’d debated about giving Harry the room closer to his, but this room is the one with the kid-sized bed that Ben had slept in while he’d been staying with Casey, and it’s also got a nicer view out onto the street instead of at the house next door only ten feet away – and swings it open, stepping inside after Harry. He wishes he’d had more time to fix it up, because it’s pretty plain looking, white walls with nothing on them and just a small desk and dresser in addition to the bed. But assuming Harry’s with him for awhile (forever, Casey thinks in the back of his mind), they can finish it up together.

“Well? What do you think?” he asks.

Harry doesn’t answer immediately; his head is swiveling this way and that as he takes in the room. “It’s … so big,” he says.

It’s definitely not what Casey was expecting to hear, because it’s actually the smallest of the three bedrooms in the house.

“What was your bedroom like when you lived with your relatives?” he asks reflexively.

And then kicks himself for even mentioning Harry’s relatives. Or is it a good thing to talk about them? He realizes that Harry isn’t answering his question and thinks about the apartments he pulled Harry out of. They’d both had three bedrooms. He hadn’t gone into the third bedroom during the more recent rescue, but he remembers the untouched bed in the first one. He remembers the closet – the _closets_ – he’d found Harry in, both times, locked from the outside. He gets a sick, sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Harry?”

Harry looks down at the floor. Casey can’t see his face.

“I didn’t have a bedroom,” Harry says.

“Ok,” Casey says, as calmly and softly as he can. He crouches down to Harry’s level so that he can look the boy in the eye. “Where did you sleep, then?”

Harry shakes his head. “I’m not supposed to tell.”

“Did your aunt and uncle tell you that?” Casey asks. Harry doesn’t answer, but Casey assumes the answer is yes. “Harry, your aunt and uncle weren’t nice people, and you don’t have to listen to anything they told you anymore. You can tell me anything.”

Harry’s not looking at Casey, but Casey keeps his eyes trained on the boy’s face, and slowly, Harry’s gaze meets his. The eye contact seems to give him the courage he needs to speak.

“I slept in my cupboard,” he says.

“The closet,” Casey says, not asking. “Harry, were you … did they always lock it?”

Another pause. Harry nods. “Yes.”

Aware that he shouldn’t overwhelm or frighten Harry, Casey moves slowly and gently as he pulls him into a hug, because he can’t possibly do anything else right in this moment. He can feel Harry’s arm, in its cast, move around to his back and understands that Harry’s hugging him, too.

“I’m so sorry they did that,” Casey says. “I’m so sorry, Harry. But you’re here now, and you’ll have a bedroom, and I will never lock it. You understand?”

He can feel Harry nodding against his shoulder.

“Good,” Casey says. “Good.”

Slowly, he pulls away from Harry. “This is your room now,” he says. “And we’re going to make it yours, ok? We’ll paint it whatever color you want, and we’ll get some stuff to put up on the walls.”

“Really?” Harry asks.

“Really,” Casey says. “And … let me show you something.”

He pulls Harry back over to the door and shuts it, then reaches up pushes in the locking mechanism.

“You see this, Harry?” he asks. “This means the door is locked. Now reach up and turn the knob.”

Harry looks confused, but he does it, and the lock pops as it’s disengaged. Harry keeps turning and opens the door.

“You see?” Casey says. “The only way this door locks is if you do it from the inside, and you can always unlock it. No more cupboard. No more locks. Yeah?”

Harry’s face breaks into a grin for the first time since Casey got him home. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I should mention that it has occurred to me that Harry, being a non-US citizen with no relatives left in the US, would probably just be sent back to the UK. But this is all fiction anyway, so for the purposes of this story, he gets shuffled into the foster system here.
> 
> 2\. I want to be clear about the scene with Dawson - I do not hate her character, and this fic will not "bash" her. I think she's a flawed but kick-ass woman. I just don't think she's right for Casey, and the scene is supposed to show that they will not be getting together.
> 
> 3\. I'm being (somewhat purposely) vague about the timeline because I like to take liberties, but I want to note one thing because I reference Katie's kidnapping - Casey's head injury should have but has not occurred in this story ... yet.
> 
> I have looked at what I have written and there are some major gaps to fill in, so the next update will definitely not be this quick.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot written, but there are also a bunch of missing scenes here and there, and my RL is busy, so I'm going to be honest and make no promises about when updates will happen.


End file.
